England skipper dismissed cheaply; lashes batsmen
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from February 1985.
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England scored 149 runs for the loss of eight wickets in its innings and contained the Sydney team to 145 runs for nine wickets.
"I am not delighted with the preparation. The bowlers had a good workout today but I am not really happy with the earlier batsmen," said Gower. Opener Graeme Fowler was run out for 23 while Chris Cowdrey (25) and Richard Ellison (35) were the only other members of the team to give an encouraging innings.
The top order batsmen failed miserably with Tim Robinson dismissed for nine, Gower four, Allan Lamb 13 and Mike Gatting six.
"If we play as badly as that on Sunday against Australia in the opening round of the World Championship in Melbourne, it will be a total disaster," said Gower.
"However I am not blowing any alarm bugles at this stage.
"It was never going to be a big scoring game but we should have got more runs."
Penrith spinner Tom Shiner proved the nemesis for the England batsmen in claiming the wickets of Gower, Gatting and Cowdrey. Only a last wicket stand of 43 runs between Ellison and Jonathan Agnew took the score to a reasonable total.
The Sydney team was in a comfortable winning position. when it needed 16 runs with four overs remaining until Test pace bowler Norman Cowans ripped through the tailenders. In the space of 16 minutes, Cowans took three wickets, two of them in his last over in which he conceded only one run.
Sydney had got away to a good start with a 51-run partnership between Paul Clark of Sutherland and Gary Mathew of Randwick. Both openers fell to the bowling of Vic Marks who finished with three wickets for 23, the same figures as Cowans.
The following batsmen pushed the score along slowly until the advent of Randwick all-rounder Gary Bensley who remained unconquered on 21.
Bensley lost four partners in trying to reach the England total and faced a near impossible task of scoring nine runs from the final over to win the match.
The England team will leave for Melbourne Friday for its final practice for Sunday's game.
